Washed It!

A plume of chromium-tainted groundwater is once again bearing down on residents of Hinkley, Calif., where more than a decade ago an underdog battle with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spawned a multimillion-dollar settlement and the Oscar-winning film “Erin Brockovich.”

The border of the plume has shifted 1,800 feet beyond a containment boundary set by PG&E in 2008, spreading higher levels of hexavalent chromium, a cancer-causing heavy metal isotope linked to stomach cancers and other health hazards, according to state water officials. The isotope also has been discovered in a lower aquifer that, until recently, PG&E believed was protected from contaminated groundwater above it by a thick layer of clay, the officials added.

In 1997, PG&E paid 660 Hinkley residents $333 million to settle lawsuits alleging injuries including intestinal tumors and breast cancer from chromium-laced waste water that had seeped from the utility’s disposal ponds between 1951 and 1966, winding its way into the community’s drinking wells.

PG&E’s handling and reporting of the migrating plume is under investigation by the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, the state regulatory agency responsible for protecting the area’s water.

“We definitely know there are violations, and that what PG&E is doing right now to contain the plume is not enough,” said Lauri Kemper, assistant executive officer for the water board. “We have the authority to impose fines of up to $5,000 per day for each day the plume exists outside of the boundary set in 2008.”

Kemper said the water board has retained a state water attorney to help prepare a legal case against the utility, a process that could take six months.

Utility officials acknowledge that parts of the plume have spread but say it is being controlled by ongoing cleanup efforts. They deny that its spread has violated any legal agreements and said more scientific research is needed to determine whether spikes in concentrations of hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium 6, detected in many local wells could be linked to the plume or to natural occurrences.

“These concentrations remain within the realms of naturally occurring background concentrations,” said Robert C. Doss, PG&E principal engineer. “There is no way to determine whether our plume is having an impact or not.”

A hearing on the matter has been scheduled for May 2011.

Doss said he understands that the situation “represents a worry about the health of Hinkley families and their investments.” But he also suggested that critics have exaggerated the health hazards posed by contamination in the plume’s outer edges and have mistakenly interpreted its constantly changing shape as “overall growth.”

The amoeba-like plume is about 2 1/2 miles long and a mile wide, and advancing west and northwest at a rate of about a foot a day, officials said.

“In some places the plume grows and then shrinks, in others it might sprout a lobe as it responds to hydrological pressures,” Doss said.

As for PG&E’s remediation efforts in Hinkley, Doss said, “It’s fair to say what we are doing now needs to be supplemented to bring it up to a final cleanup. But we take exception to any assertions that the measures we’ve taken have not had a positive effect on the problem.”

Many property owners in this dusty agricultural town about five miles west of Barstow in San Bernardino County are frustrated with PG&E’s efforts to contain the plume and the water board’s apparent hesitation to charge the utility with civil violations.

“Obviously, the community would be happy to see us file civil liability complaints against the company,” Kemper said. “We are considering that internally. But we haven’t yet because we are busy every day trying to stay on top of the situation to ensure they are continuing to clean up this plume.”

“They’ve had 23 years to fix this problem,” said Carmela Gonzalez, 44, a lifelong resident who was not part of the original Hinkley lawsuit. “Instead, they’ve allowed the contamination plume to grow and put fear in the hearts of Hinkley residents that they are still not safe and that their property is worthless.”

Added Gonzalez: “People around here no longer trust the water board to do right by Hinkley. PG&E should be helping residents get out of here if they want to by giving them reasonable compensation for their losses.”

Some of the hundreds of plaintiffs in the earlier case are exploring their options, given that they signed agreements barring them from discussing details of their settlements. Some residents, who were not involved in that case, talk of launching another class-action lawsuit.

Lillie Stone and her husband, Jim, who is disabled, live on fixed incomes and want PG&E to buy their property at a reasonable price, or pay to help them relocate. Neither received any settlement money from the original Hinkley case.

Tainted PG&E groundwater plume again threatens residents of Hinkley, Calif.

At Sami Abu Hossein’s cramped bookstore, the hundred or so book titles listed on a wall aren’t bestsellers. They’re banned.

And the cheery Abu Hossein can you get you any of them, sometimes in the few minutes it takes to sit down and drink a cup of thick-brewed Turkish coffee.

“There are three no-nos,” the owner of Al Taliya Books explains with a big smile. “Sex, politics and religion. Unfortunately, that’s all anyone ever wants to read about.”

He laughs uproariously.

“These are all the banned ones,” he says, gesturing to the list taped to the wall above the store entrance, books on sexuality to ones that critically examine the life and times of the prophet Muhammad, the most taboo topic in the Arab world.

“We have them,” he says, grinning broadly, “but don’t tell anyone.”

The tubby father of five seems to get a tremendous kick out of bucking the rules. (Not that they’re strictly enforced; he’s never been arrested or even summoned by the authorities.)

His partner in thought crime is Hossein Yassin, a self-described Marxist in a worn beige linen suit. Abu Hossein summons his wiry 48-year-old comrade in for the really tough jobs.

Yassin jokes that he’s the Special Forces for getting banned or hard-to-find books. He makes allusions to a murky past as an underground revolutionary. He says he calls upon a network that stretches across the Middle East to locate and transport hard-to-find titles.

“I can get any book,” he boasts. “But don’t ask how I get them.”

The most widely requested banned book remains “The Satanic Verses,” the 1988 novel that suggested some parts of the Koran weren’t God’s words and thereby earned its author, Salman Rushdie, a fatwa issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the hatred of pious Muslims worldwide.

Other top requests include “23 Years,” by the Iranian scholar Ali Dashti, which questions miracles ascribed to Muhammad in the Koran; and “The Joke in the Arab World,” by the Egyptian writer Khaled Qashtin, a sarcastic view of the Middle East, its rulers and customs.

Abu Hossein’s shop, in the capital’s rambling but lively downtown, also sells nonblacklisted books. His shelves are filled with titles from serious political studies about the Middle East to romance novels and pirated software manuals.

But his shop is known as the place in Amman to get forbidden fruits of knowledge.

Censoring books in the age of the Internet may seem like a quaint idea. Even the government official in charge of restricting them recently announced in a newspaper article that “stopping books from reaching the people is a page we’ve turned.”

The censor, Abdullah Abu Roman, occasionally stops by the bookstore to hobnob with Abu Hossein. So do plainclothes security officials. Abu Hossein serves them his Turkish coffee. They very politely ask him for the copies of the forbidden books. He hands them over. It’s all very civilized.

“Allah maakon,” he bids them farewell. God be with you.

“They are very sensitive to politics and criticism of politicians,” says Abu Hossein, who has been working at his family shop for decades. “But there are some books that are banned arbitrarily. Sometimes a censor will ban a book for a sentence he doesn’t like.”

A thickly bearded man wearing a headdress and flowing white dishdasha walks in. He’s one of the regulars, a Saudi religious scholar named Thaer Balawi who perhaps enjoys the challenge of subjecting his puritanical Salafist beliefs to the scrutiny of critical intellects. “You can’t stop an idea by censoring it,” he says.

“Mamnoueh maqroubieh,” goes the Arabic proverb. All that is forbidden is desired.

Abu Hossein recalls a memoir by a former interior minister that the censors immediately forbade for its sensitive revelations. It became a bestseller. But later, the political sands shifted, and the book was removed from the blacklist. Now it hardly sells.

In walks Raed Toguj, iPod ear buds firmly in place, a Web designer in his 20s with a penchant for philosophy and social theory. Censorship, he says, is a product of political ideology. “What I see as the solution is critical thinking,” he says.

Toguj acknowledges that the Internet has made his task superfluous. Many banned books are already available for download, and those with money can order copies from online bookstores abroad.

But Abu Hossein and his customers insisted that there’s something special about holding a book in your hand, feeling its pages, gabbing with the bookseller and fellow seekers of knowledge, like Carol Kaplanian, a 29-year-old doctoral student writing a thesis on honor killings of women in the Middle East, picking through a pile of books on gender relations.

The afternoon wears on. Abu Hossein keeps serving cups of coffee for his guests, the Salafist, the communist, the feminist and the Web dude with a passion for philosophy. They sift through titles and chat quietly, their murmurs softened by the stacks of books surrounding them.

daragahi@latimes.com
In Jordan, a bookstore devoted to forbidden titles

His white shirt pressed, the chef glides through the crowd like a ship in full sail, checking tables, nodding to waiters. His world is full of hurry but he is not rushed. He sits down in the shade, wiping his brow amid a lunchtime crowd of gunrunners, clan elders, beggars and bankers.

They drift down unnamed roads toward his tables, the air sweet with meat, crushed vegetables, sprigs of spearmint. Scores of diners at a time cram elbow to elbow slurping and scooping at the edge of town, where big trucks haul white stone down from the mountains.

They know Abdulkarim Harazi has three wives, 18 children, a worn dagger and the humor of a man not done in by adversity. When he speaks, his customers, sopping broth with soft bread, listen, knowing that no matter how circuitous or embellished the tale, there’ll be wisdom waiting at the end.

“You handle a big family with justice,” says Harazi, pausing the way he does, eyes bright with mischief. “Justice means sleeping with one wife one night and another wife the next. This brings balance. Justice can’t control some things, though, like the passion of the heart.”

Harazi’s fires spit blue flames and hum like storms, searing blackened bowls filled with a traditional meat dish called fasha and a stew known as saltah. Thick with chilies, herbs, onions, potatoes, coriander and maybe a speck of cilantro, the meals bubble and cool beneath conversations of impatient men.

“Quality and cleanliness are the keys” to a fine meal, Harazi says.

His waiters have blistered fingers and gold-trimmed caps. From sunrise to just before dusk, they serve 1,300 pounds of beef and 660 pounds of vegetables to 4,000 diners at the Fakhi restaurant. Nobody rests, not the ladle men, nor the dicers, knives chopping, oil hissing at the culinary crossroads of the capital, where, for a brief moment and a few dollars, businessmen sit with junkmen for a taste that’s the same to everyone.

The main floor is shaded and dim, the tables long. Finding a seat requires cunning and swiftness and dodging men with quick hands. Some have guns, most have daggers. Outside, down steps faded by sunlight, more tables are lined beneath narrow shelters and there’s a feeling of an army encamped beneath the hills circling the city. From the road, amid clatter and the glow of fires, the word is that eating lunch anywhere else would be a pitiful miscalculation.

The men — not a woman in sight — speak of private misfortunes and national troubles. A land of deserts, rock ridges and sea coves, Yemen is both beautiful and tormented. Rebellions rattle north and south, Al Qaeda fighters roam the outlands and the Americans are talking about missile strikes and the cost of terror. Poorest country in Arab world, that’s what they keep saying, a place of thin wallets and drought. Here, though, you polish your spoon, stay away from the flame and eat.

“It’s simple,” says Harazi. “The cost of living is too high and the country is too unstable. It’s all about food and worry these days. There’s no hope because you can’t see anyone improving around you. I try to do the best for my children. Education, they must have that.”

He’s a solid man with thick hands and black stubble, settling into his chair like a priest hearing confessions. He knows that life needs places like this restaurant, reliable and intimate as home but without home’s predictability. You never know who might pull up on a motorcycle or amble in from the fringes. Harazi’s eyes gather them all, watching, ever watching.

By midafternoon the men are restless, waiting to dip into crinkly bags of shiny narcotic khat leaves that will mellow them out until way past sunset. It’s a ritual as common as sleeping or waking. Nearly everyone at the restaurant finishes lunch and chews khat, cheeks bulging, eyes calm, the world suddenly fixable.

“Khat makes you forget about things,” says Harazi. “Khat gives you many ideas, but behind them is no planning.”

He laughs.

Wheels spin through gravel; a tribal leader in an SUV arrives in the parking lot, draped by dust and a well-armed entourage. Diners pause. No shots fired. Spoons resume. The leader, kissing cheeks, slapping backs, finds a seat.

“Look at that,” Harazi says, “Barack Obama doesn’t have as many bodyguards.”

“How many employees do you have?” someone asks.

Harazi looks around and whispers.

“One hundred, but if the taxman comes, only 20.”

Food for thought at one culinary crossroads in Yemen

Autobiography of Mark Twain

Volume 1

Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith, et al.

University of California Press: 738 pp., $34.95

Having created a quintessentially American brand of humor and style of literature, Mark Twain (1835-1910) can now add to his myriad accomplishments the title of America’s first blogger. No matter that the “Autobiography of Mark Twain,” edited by a team led by Harriet Elinor Smith, weighs in at more than 5,000 pages. Volume One, covering the period from 1870 to 1906, and clocking in at a bit over 700 pages (including 200 pages of notes), is being published to coincide with Twain’s 175th birthday, Nov. 30.

But what a blog it is: A prose paean to Twain’s enormous energy level, his incessant need to express himself, and, on a parallel track, his unwavering narcissism. He rejected traditional means of orderly exposition in favor of creating a freewheeling record of his thoughts, unrestrained and unfiltered except by the King — himself.

No American author has ever captured the imagination the way that Twain did and continues to do a century after his death at 74. (Average life expectancy for men at the time was 47.) He was the first American global celebrity, with his signature claiming a higher price than President Roosevelt’s (to Twain’s delight, since he did not much care for Teddy). His great accomplishment in creating a distinct American sense of self and attitude is well described by Charles Kuralt: “If I had to say as much about America as I possibly could in only two words, I would say these two words: ‘Huck Finn.’”

Composing his mammoth “Autobiography” took Twain, on and off, more than 35 years of a life that included much satisfying success as well as devastating losses. He started writing installments the same year he married Olivia Langdon, in 1870, when he was 35. His first effort described the land investment his father had made, a purchase that weighed upon Twain like a millstone due to the annual taxes he had to pay after his father’s death. (In an ironic twist, after the land was sold, oil was discovered there.) While sustaining such a self-focus over such a long time would be an improbable passion for most mere mortals, Twain, despite his extremely modest beginnings in Florida, Mo., was not a humble guy. Indeed, he deemed his accomplishments so numerous and spectacular that by the end of his life he found the best analogy was comparing himself with Halley’s Comet: “The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’”

Never one to rest for any prolonged period of time, by the time of his death, Twain had managed to cross the Atlantic 29 times, completed an around-the-world lecture tour at age 59, written more than 50,000 letters, scores of short stories, some 3,000 newspaper and magazine articles and more than 30 books.

Twain’s “Autobiography” offers a m

The U.S. Department of Justice has warned the Los Angeles Police Department that its investigations into racial profiling by officers are inadequate and that some cops still tolerate the practice.

As evidence of the ongoing problem, Justice officials pointed to two LAPD officers who were unknowingly recorded during a conversation with a supervisor being dismissive of racial profiling complaints.

“So, what?” one said, when told that other officers had been accused of stopping a motorist because of his race. The second officer is heard twice saying that he “couldn’t do [his] job without racially profiling.”

The officers’ comments, Justice officials found, spoke to a “perception and attitude of some LAPD officers on the street” and suggested “a culture that is inimical to race-neutral policing.”

The Justice Department’s concerns, which were conveyed in a recent letter obtained by The Times, are a setback for the LAPD, which remains under federal oversight on the issue. In order to rid itself of the federal scrutiny — which police officials have increasingly come to resent — the LAPD must assuage the Justice Department’s concerns.

The harsh assessment has also fed into internal tensions as members of the Police Commission, the civilian panel that oversees the LAPD, grow impatient with the pace of department efforts to more aggressively address the politically and socially explosive issue that has long dogged the city’s police.

Police Chief Charlie Beck disputed the Justice Department findings, saying they were based on cases that predated strict investigative guidelines put into place last year. He also rejected the suggestion that the candid comments of the two officers caught on the recording reflected a pervasive problem.

“It is a huge leap to paint the entire department with that brush,” Beck said. “And it is just not true. It’s not that type of department. We have a tough history that we must overcome and that takes time, but … the vast, vast majority of Los Angeles police officers today police in the right ways for the right reasons.”

Nonetheless, accusations of racial profiling — “biased policing” in modern LAPD lingo — have continued to hamper the department as it has worked to leave behind a reputation for racism and excessive force.

Profiling complaints typically occur after a traffic or pedestrian stop, when the officer is accused of targeting a person solely because of his or her race, ethnicity, religious garb or some other form of outward appearance. About 250 such cases arise each year, but more damaging is the widely held belief, especially among black and Latino men, that the practice is commonplace.

In the letter to city and police officials, the Justice Department expressed “continuing concerns about the overall quality of … investigations of biased policing.” Federal officials criticized investigators for “going through the motions” and found they “simply take ordered statements from officers and then run down a checklist of required questions without following up on key points or asking fundamental questions one would expect.”

In one case the Justice Department reviewed, patrol officers passed a Latino man driving in the opposite direction and did a U-turn to pull him over for a broken brake light. After asking the driver if he was in a gang and checking to see if he had any outstanding warrants, the officers let him go with a warning.

“The investigating officer never asked the officers involved what prompted them to look behind them to actually observe a non-working brake light,” the Justice officials wrote. “The investigator accepted the officers’ single-word answers of ‘No’ to the question whether race was a factor in the stop.”

“They are criticizing us for the way we used to do things,” Beck said in an interview.

He said significant progress has been made, not only in the investigations but also with regard to officers’ attitudes. Still, he said he was concerned about the tape-recorded comments of the two officers, adding that a misconduct investigation has been opened. In that case, the officers were taped by a supervisor who neglected to turn off a recording device after interviewing two other officers accused of racial profiling.

The Justice Department did not respond to calls for comment.

Until last year, the LAPD was under a federal consent decree that the Justice Department imposed in 2001 after the Rampart corruption scandal. It required the Police Department to complete sweeping reforms on many issues and to submit to near-constant audits and monitoring.

The U.S. District Court judge who lifted the decree found that the department had completed most, but not all, of the required reforms. On racial profiling, the judge called on federal authorities to remain in an oversight role for a time to assess the quality of the LAPD’s investigations and the Police Commission’s ability to monitor the issue.

Justice officials sounded an alarm after a report in May from the inspector general, the commission’s watchdog, concluded that the LAPD generally was doing an adequate job. Justice officials criticized the inspector general’s office for “not asking more substantive and probing questions.”

In an effort to satisfy the Justice Department, Nicole Bershon, who took over as inspector general in May, is expected to release a detailed report at the end of the month that reviews 10 recent racial profiling investigations. The cases were handled by a special team of investigators the LAPD formed this year to look at complaints accusing police of searching or detaining a person because of race or ethnicity.

Police commissioners have grown frustrated with the department’s work on racial profiling. At a meeting earlier this month, the commission’s president, John Mack, and Commissioner Rob Saltzman questioned whether police officials were doing enough. They noted that no officer has been found guilty of racial profiling by an LAPD investigation for years, despite numerous complaints each year.

Police leaders have long argued that because racial profiling hinges on what an officer was thinking in the moment, it is all but impossible to determine if he or she racially profiled someone unless there is a confession. When the commanding officer of the Internal Affairs Division offered that explanation to the commission, Mack dismissed it.

“I’ve heard many times that we can’t get inside an officer’s head, but somehow, some way, we need to figure out a way to get to the facts,” Mack said. “I’m not talking about a witch hunt, but I am talking about reaching a point where we can say with confidence that these claims have been very fairly and very thoroughly investigated.”

joel.rubin@latimes.com

Justice Department warns LAPD to take a stronger stance against racial profiling

Newly elected Assemblyman Jeff Gorell is on a mission, it just wasn’t the one he expected.

In March, the freshman Republican from Camarillo, a Navy reservist, will trade his business suit for combat fatigues and report for a year’s duty in Afghanistan. Never mind that he hasn’t yet hired a staff, opened an office or introduced legislation.

He’s still working out a more basic question: How will he run his office during his 12-month absence?

Gorell briefly considered asking the Legislature to pass an emergency bill allowing him to nominate a temporary replacement. When it became clear that would violate the state’s constitution, he decided instead to take a leave of absence, relying on staff and friendly Republican colleagues to attend to business in his Ventura County district.

The former prosecutor and college lecturer, 40, acknowledges it’s not the ideal way to launch a political career. But he’s accepted his pending deployment with the same earnestness that has made him widely appealing in his conservative-leaning 37th district.

“It’s a misfortune of timing,” said Gorell, a moderate who’s holding office for the first time. He easily defeated Democrat Ferial Masry for the district covering Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and Simi Valley. “I’m going to work really hard to prove that I will be the hardest-working legislator in the building. I’ll get as much done in 31/2 months as most do in 12.”

Gorell is the first legislator in California to be deployed for active duty since World War II, though legislators in other states have found themselves in the same predicament 51 times since Sept. 11, 2001, according to the chief clerk of the Assembly’s office.

Army Reservist Tom Umberg was absent from the final months of his 2004 campaign for the Assembly as he helped prosecute terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the Orange County Democrat was back home by the time his Assembly term began.

Federal and state laws mandate that Gorell can return to his job once his tour ends. But states are handling what to do in legislators’ absence in different ways. Texas and five other states allow for a temporary fill-in. Legislator-soldiers in Pennsylvania, on the other hand, have taken leaves of absence.

A California military code written during the Korean War mentions the option of a temporary replacement if the Legislature authorizes it. But the state has never taken that step, Gorell said, and after consulting with lawyers he determined it probably wouldn’t be legal because the state’s constitution says vacancies must be filled by special election.

Assembly Speaker John A. P

Roxanne Brummell has thrived in what many consider the toughest new testing ground for teachers in the nation.

The fifth-grade teacher in Washington, D.C., earned a “highly effective” rating under the district’s controversial system that rewards — and sometimes fires — teachers based in part on their students’ progress on standardized tests. In just seven months, she helped boost her students’ reading scores by an average of 24%.

Brummell’s reward: a $20,000 bonus and recognition at district award ceremonies.

Brummell, a Guyana native, likes the acknowledgment and the data-driven feedback. But she frets that the district is relying too heavily on standardized tests and isn’t doing enough to help teachers who are struggling.

As for the bonus, she almost didn’t accept it. One condition was that she give up various rights if laid off in a budget crunch.

“I love it, but it has its flaws,” she said of the district’s evaluation system, as she recovered from a busy day of explaining improper fractions.

Her complex feelings reflect the nationwide ambivalence toward the growing movement to hold teachers more accountable for what their students actually learn. Until now, evaluations typically have involved a school administrator making a quick, pre-announced visit to a teacher’s classroom. But in major districts including Washington’s, New York’s and Houston’s — and perhaps soon, Los Angeles’ — officials are using a method called “value-added” to bring a measure of objectivity to the process.

Value-added assesses a teacher’s effectiveness at raising students’ performance on standardized tests compared with how they did in previous years. Virtually no one endorses the method as the sole measure of an instructor.

For states to qualify for certain federal grants, the Obama administration is requiring that they link teacher evaluations to student performance. At least 27 states have passed or are considering legislation to meet that requirement.

“There is an absolute laser focus on teacher evaluation in this country now — I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Rob Weil of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 2,200 school districts.

But the trend has stirred opposition. Some educational experts and union leaders say that value-added is not reliable enough for high-stakes decisions on firing, tenure or pay; that it is a narrow gauge of teaching; and that it pressures instructors to “teach to the test.”

Supporters say it is one important tool to be used in combination with others, perhaps including end-of-course tests or reviews of student work. How much weight to give it, what stakes to attach, how many years of data to consider and even how to calculate the scores are not settled questions, leaving much room for discussion and debate.

At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is studying many of these questions, senior program officer Steve Cantrell said concerns that the method may inaccurately assess some teachers must be balanced against the likelihood that it will improve the chances for children to have an effective instructor. “If you shift the perspective from what is best for adults to what is best for students, then it’s super clear that value-added can improve the system over time,” he said.

In Los Angeles, the teachers union has adamantly opposed using value-added in teacher evaluations — but a school district panel named by the superintendent has recommended that it go forward. The debate erupted in August, when The Times published a database of the value-added scores of about 6,000 elementary school teachers based on seven years of testing data, prompting union protests and vows by the district to raise the issue during contract negotiations. It was the first time in the nation such information had been made public.

In New York, the city school district’s recent announcement that it would release value-added scores to the media drew an immediate court challenge from the teachers union. Underscoring warring perspectives within the district, a Brooklyn public school on Friday sent a notice to parents urging them to protest the release, saying: “OUR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS ARE NOT TEST SCORES!!”

Perhaps nowhere has the approach drawn more attention — and outrage — than in Washington, which has probably taken value-added further than any other district in the country.

Former Chancellor Michelle Rhee said she came to the nation’s capital three years ago knowing her changes would wreak political havoc. But she said she was willing to take on a system that was giving passing evaluations to 95% of teachers even as only 8% of students were performing at grade level in mathematics.

“How can you have a system where you’re that misaligned?” Rhee asked in a recent interview. “For me, it’s always about putting this in the lens of children and families … as opposed to making this a fight between groups of adults.”

She rolled out value-added analysis last year for a group of teachers in fourth through eighth grades. This year, administrators fired 75 of those teachers with poor appraisals and gave more than 700 others rated minimally effective one year to improve. The district also rewarded more than 630 “highly effective” educators with bonuses ranging from $3,000 to $25,000.

For L.A., possible lessons in D.C.’s controversial teacher evaluation system

The leaders of the world’s 20 major economies on Friday ended a frequently rancorous two-day summit in this northeast Asian capital without reaching agreement on specific steps to avert damaging currency and trade wars.

There were far more setbacks than gains, but President Obama suffered the biggest disappointment, falling short in his attempt to forge a unified approach to boosting the global economy.

In one blow, G-20 members refused to endorse a U.S. effort to force China to raise the value of its currency, prolonging a bitter dispute that many say could eventually lead to a global trade war. Before world leaders left the city, they issued a watered-down statement agreeing merely to refrain from “competitive devaluation” of currencies.

The joint statement described their intent to promote growth while balancing trade and exchange rates and avoiding protectionist policies in general. U.S. officials described it as a substantial deal that will help relieve some of the pressure on countries suffering big trade deficits. But nations are under no binding obligation to follow the agreements.

The previous day, the U.S. and South Korea acknowledged that they remained in a stalemate over a free-trade agreement that has languished in the national legislatures of both nations.

In his final speech, Obama put a positive spin on a disappointing summit, saying that the world’s developed and developing economies have been successful in putting the global economy back on a path toward recovery.

Yet he acknowledged that the summit nations risk slipping back into the old imbalances that contributed to the global economic crisis.

Still, he would not admit defeat in back-door meetings that often seemed on the verge of breaking into hostility.

“The work that we do here is not going to seem dramatic. It is not always going to be world-changing. But step to step, what we’re doing is building stronger international mechanisms and institutions” and reducing tensions among nations, Obama said.

He also blamed the media, saying that the reporting on the G-20 summit has been “all about conflict,” while ignoring that what was accomplished.

He stressed that G-20 leaders made strides, including the development of a system to give the international community a mechanism to determine whether countries are engaging in unfair practices with their trading partners.

“Sometimes I think naturally there’s an instinct to focus on the disagreements,” the president said, when in fact “in each of these successive summits we’ve actually made progress.”

But time and again in Seoul, world leaders showed that they were in no mood to compromise and instead were headed toward broad, general pledges that did little to mask their inability to find common ground for immediate action.

At times, that failure to find consensus raised the specter of countries pursuing their own interests at the expense of coordinated and balanced global growth.

British Prime Minister David Cameron warned of the risks of that route at the summit opening, saying failure by the G-20 to accomplish some sort of global accommodation could lead to “a return to what happened in the 1930s: protectionism, trade barriers, currency wars, countries pursuing beggar-thy-neighbor policies; trying to do well for themselves but not caring about the rest of the world.”

Many countries, however, appeared to be doing just that. In particular, they took aim at the Federal Reserve’s recent decision to pump $600 billion into the U.S. financial system, a move that critics saw as an attempt to lower the value of the dollar and therefore make U.S. exports more competitive.

As the leaders gathered in Seoul, Bank of China Chairman Xiao Gang called the Fed’s move “dangerous,” writing in the semiofficial China Daily newspaper that it had driven the dollar down in value, raised expectations of inflation and hurt other economies. That position was backed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who said the U.S. was “pursuing a policy of currency weakening.”

U.S. officials declared they were doing no such thing. And, in fact, the U.S. dollar has been rising in value in recent days.

“We will never seek to weaken our currency as a tool to gain competitive advantage or to grow the economy,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told CNBC from Seoul. “It’s not an effective strategy for any country, and it’s not for the U.S. We’ll never do that.”

G-20 summit ends with watered-down agreement

As Jerry Brown prepares to take over as governor, California faces a $25.4-billion deficit — far larger than state officials were projecting only days ago — the state’s chief budget analyst said Wednesday.

The figure, projected over the next year and a half, results from billions of dollars in phantom savings approved by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators last month, more budget restrictions passed by voters last week and predictions of a “painfully slow economic recovery,” according to the report from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

In addition, more than $8 billion in temporary sales, car and income taxes are set to expire in the coming year, and the federal stimulus program that has helped prop up schools, healthcare for the poor and other state programs also will soon disappear.

The report shows $20-billion annual shortfalls in future years as well.

“There is no good news,” said Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor.

Simply keeping K-12 public schools funded at their current level would expand the deficit, Taylor said. That is because billions of dollars in school cutbacks are already factored in.

The predicted $25.4-billion deficit is the equivalent of about 29% of this year’s general fund budget. Erasing the gap will require a combination of severe cuts and more in tax collections over several years, the report said.

“They have to consider everything,” Taylor said of lawmakers and the governor-elect.

Brown, on a post-election vacation, was unavailable for comment. He is scheduled to return to Sacramento next week. One of his campaign pledges was that he would not raise taxes without voters’ approval.

Republicans immediately vowed to block any tax hikes, and Democrats pledged to protect core programs and jobs and to use the shortfall as a reason to restructure government. Senate minority leader Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga) called for an emergency legislative session to immediately address the projected deficit.

Schwarzenegger signed the latest spending plan in modern history last month, 100 days into the fiscal year. The analyst’s report Wednesday estimated that $6 billion, or roughly a third, of the deficit-cutting that the governor and legislative leaders said they achieved will never materialize.

Prisons spending will outpace what was budgeted only a month ago by $965 million, and overly rosy assumptions of a helping hand from Washington will prove too optimistic by $3.5 billion, according to the report.

Any future aid from the nation’s capital, where Republicans decisively seized control of the House of Representatives last week on promises to curb federal spending, is also unlikely.

“Good luck,” Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) said Wednesday. “We’re going to be trying to reduce spending here, not increase spending.”

Taylor sought to lower expectations that a robust economic recovery would pave the way for California’s return to solvency. His report reduces tax receipt estimates for the current year, citing a “sluggishly” improving economy.

Tax collections in California — a center of the mortgage boom and bust — won’t return to their peak levels of 2007-08 until 2015-16, the report forecasts.

“It’s not just budget, it’s also the economy,” said Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Bob Blumenfield (D-Woodland Hills).

Taylor projected a $22.4-billion deficit in fiscal 2012-13. That ebbs only slightly to $19.4 billion by fiscal 2015-16. Even those bleak figures could prove optimistic: They assume no cost-of-living adjustments and that California will win all pending lawsuits against the state.

Voters widened the deficits last week by approving two measures that constrain legislators’ ability to assess fees on businesses and to take funds from local governments. Combined, the measures unravel $800 million in savings this year and up to $1 billion annually in the future, the report said.

But Californians also voted to allow the Legislature, which Democrats control, to pass budgets with a simple majority rather than a two-thirds vote. That could eliminate the need for GOP approval, which has often stalled the budget process. But a two-thirds vote is still required to raise taxes, which necessitates some Republican support.

shane.goldmacher@latimes.com

Times staff writer Richard Simon in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

Estimated state budget deficit reaches $25.4 billion

After a survey of U.S. troops and their families, a Pentagon study group has concluded that the military can lift the ban on gays serving openly in uniform with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to current war efforts, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The newspaper quoted two people familiar with a draft of the study, which is to be completed for Defense Secretary Robert Gates by Dec. 1., but with an uncertain public release date.

More than 70% of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays and lesbians in uniform would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, the sources told the newspaper.

The newspaper said the survey results have led the report’s authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them.

The long, detailed and nuanced report will almost certainly be used by opponents and supporters of repeal legislation to bolster their positions in what is likely to be a heated and partisan congressional debate. And it is expected to reveal challenges the services could face in overturning the long-held policy, including overcoming fierce opposition in some parts of the force — primarily in the Army and Marine Corps — even if they represent a minority.

The Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Amos, last week said that with forces fighting in Afghanistan and still deployed in Iraq, now was the wrong time to lift the ban.

“This is not a social thing. This is combat effectiveness,” Amos said.

That brought a mild rebuke from Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, who said he was surprised that Amos had spoken publicly. He said the heads of the military services had committed to “look at the data and then make our recommendations privately.”

The Post said Gates, Mullen and uniformed and civilian leaders of the four military branches received copies of the draft report late last week.

The document totaled about 370 pages and is divided into two sections, the newspaper said. The first section explores whether repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” would harm unit readiness or morale. The second part of the report presents a plan for ending enforcement of the ban. It is not meant to serve as the military’s official instruction manual on the issue but could be used if military leaders agreed, one of the sources told the newspaper.

Among other questions, the survey asked whether having an openly gay person in a unit would have an effect in an intense combat situation. Although a majority of respondents signaled no strong objections, a significant minority is opposed to serving alongside openly gay troops. About 40% of the Marine Corps is concerned about lifting the ban, according to one of the people familiar with the report, the Post said.

Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said that of the 400,000 surveys sent randomly to troops, 115,052 responded. An additional 150,000 surveys were sent to spouses with 44,266 completed. Defense officials have said they were pleased with the response rate and believed it was enough to get an accurate sampling of the force.

President Obama has vowed to end the policy. A Democratic proposal to repeal the 1993 law already has passed the House as part of a broader defense policy bill that includes such popular provisions as a pay raise for the troops. But that same legislation sank in the Senate under Republican objections just weeks before the Nov. 2 elections.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised another vote by year’s end, although the political dynamics in this lame-duck session haven’t changed much. Gates has asked Congress to act before January, but Senate Democrats still hold a shaky majority and they are unlikely to give in to Republican demands for a protracted debate.

A Republican gay rights group, the Log Cabin Republicans, has challenged the constitutionality of the policy in court. The Obama administration on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to keep the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in place while a federal appeals court considers the issue.

The administration filed court papers in defense of an appeals court order that allowed “don’t ask, don’t tell” to go back into effect after a federal judge declared it unconstitutional and barred its enforcement. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is reviewing the administration’s appeal.

The Log Cabin Republicans asked the Supreme Court to step into the case to reverse the appeals court decision that has allowed “don’t ask, don’t tell” to remain in effect despite the order by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips.

Among several recommendations, the Pentagon report urges an end to the military ban on sodomy between consenting adults, regardless of what Congress or the federal courts might do about “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the source told the Post.

The report also concludes that gay troops should not be put into a special class for equal employment or discrimination purposes, that person said. The recommendation is based on feedback the study group obtained from gay troops and same-sex partners who said they do not want a special classification, according to the source.

The report recommends few, if any, changes to policy covering military housing and benefits because the military must abide by the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which does not recognize same-sex marriage.
Pentagon draft study shows low risk to ending ‘don’t ask’ policy